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“I’d come over if I could, really,” Jesse told him. “But I can’t miss any more work than I already have, or my boss’ll fire me. Do you think you can just hold out a little while longer? I’ll come straight home as soon as my shift ends.”

“…Y-yeah,” Jamie made himself say, though now he felt guilty on top of everything else. It was his fault Jesse had to work all night lo ng, and it was his fault Jesse had so many medical bills to pay. “Don’t… worry about me, I’ll – I’ll be okay. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Sounds like it was one hell of a nightmare,” Jesse said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jamie didn’t respond. He couldn’t talk anymore, didn’t know what to say or how to explain without making things worse, so he thrust the phone into Austin’s hands, and then pulled his knees up onto the couch to wrap his arms around them. He felt so cold… Just like in the dream.

“Oh, uh, hey, it’s me,” Austin said into the phone, looking concerned again as he gave Jamie another long look.

“Yeah, he gave me the phone. …Well, I don’t know!

It just… seemed really bad tonight.” He frowned deeply as he listened to whatever Jesse was saying in reply, getting up and walking a little away, putting his hand over the phone a little as if that would make his words any harder to hear.

“…Why are you still talking to that guy?” he said quietly.

He reached up to rub at his forehead, closing his eyes as if his head was aching.

Then he frowned again at whatever Jesse said, pursing his lips.

“Actually, that might be a big help. I guess maybe there’s one thing he’s good for.

” He listened again for a moment, and then let out an exaggerated sigh.

“Save the lecture; don’t you have burritos to make? …Okay, see you later.”

Austin hung up the phone, and then held it back out to Jamie as he sat down next to him on the couch.

“Hey, so… Jesse says he’s been talking to—he’s been talking to Nate these past couple of days,” he said, his voice sounding a little reluctant.

“These dreams, they’ve been getting worse, right?

Like, what happened tonight was new ground for sure, but we’d already noticed you were starting to get them more and more often.

And Nate, he suggested… well, he suggested you go see a therapist.”

A flicker of confusion went through Jamie at the word. “What is that? What’s a therapist? ”

“Uh, a therapist is somebody who’s trained to help people work through…

brain things,” Austin said, pushing a hand through his thick brown curls as his green eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

“Only it’s smarter than I’m making it sound.

They’re like a doctor for your mind; if you’re hurting or if you have a problem, they can help figure out what’s wrong, and make sure you have what you need to either get better or manage the problem.

These dreams are really bothering you, and not to mention, your memories never came back. ”

Jamie wasn’t entirely sure if he really wanted them to, though.

“To be honest, we probably should’ve thought of this a long time ago,” Austin continued. “But, just like every other kind of healthcare, therapy is expensive.”

“Oh,” Jamie frowned. “Then I don’t want it. Not when Jesse has to work so hard for what we already have to pay.”

“I can understand that,” Austin said with a nod. “But a therapist can be really helpful, Jamie, and I know that Jesse would rather work a hundred extra shifts than to know you’re suffering every night. I think he’ll be much happier if he knows that you’re healing, too.”

“…But I don’t like doctors,” Jamie decided. “They poke and prod and ask questions I don’t have answers to. I don’t want to go talk to some mind doctor, that will be even worse.”

“It’s really not all that bad,” Austin told him.

“I go to therapy too, you know. Not as much as I used to, but sometimes if I’m…

in a real bad place, it can help a lot. And I still go to physical therapy all the time.

It’s really perfectly normal; your brain is the most complicated thing in your body, so it just makes sense that it needs a bit of doctoring now and then, too.

Your group wouldn’t expect you to dance on a sprained ankle, and this isn’t any different. ”

…Jamie hadn’t thought about it like that. “I… guess I can try it out,” he conceded. “But – but I don’t want to go alone.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we can work something out,” Austin told him. “Maybe Jesse can go with you, and if not, I’ll always be happy to volunteer my time to help you out. ”

“What about your job?” Jamie asked. “How come you never have to leave for long shifts like Jesse does?”

“That’s the good thing about working as a writer,” Austin told him. “My schedule is flexible. I do most of my work at night, that’s when I’m most creative, and then I sleep during the day when Jesse’s at school or work, and you’re off dancing or cleaning at the studio.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Jamie said.

“You’ve known me for a few months now,” Austin said. “How come you never asked before?”

“I didn’t think of it,” Jamie admitted with a blush. “But whatever, I’ll go to the therapy.”

The corners of Austin’s mouth turned up into a fond smile.

“Therapist,” he corrected helpfully. “Or, just ‘therapy.’ You either ‘go to therapy,’ or to ‘the therapist.’ Oh, but, uh, don’t…

don’t tell them about your hair and eyes changing color.

Just stick with the story you tell your dance group; hair dye and contacts. ”

Right.

Because even if he was going to a therapist, they still couldn’t reveal everything that made him so… different.

* * *

Jesse

Thanks to some help from Nate, it didn’t take nearly as long to find Jamie a therapist as Jesse had feared it would.

A little over a week after they made the decision to try, they were already walking into the office of Dr. Alevera.

Although Nate had never met her personally, he said that a lot of his patients at the hospital recommended her, and wrote Jamie a referral to get him accepted faster.

Jamie seemed nervous, and Jesse couldn’t blame him.

He tried to be as calming a presence for Jamie as possible, and was glad that Dr. Alevera allowed him to sit in on the session.

Judging by how often Jamie reached for his hand as he talked through everything, he clearly needed the support.

If Dr. Alevera had insisted that Jamie come in alone, things might have gone more poorly.

But, they got through the hour easily enough.

Jamie explained his memory loss and recurring nightmare (withholding the bits about his hair and eyes changing color, of course) and Dr. Alevera listened attentively.

She looked younger than Jesse had expected, probably not even thirty—though, considering he was studying to be a nurse at twenty-one, he supposed he wasn’t one to judge—with a distinct Latina heritage in her features.

“These dreams, how often do you have them?” she asked after Jamie finished his explanation, consulting her notepad with a thoughtful frown on her bronzed face as she carefully tucked her thick reddish-brown hair, worn in loose curls, behind her ears.

“Well… at first, it was only every now and then,” Jamie admitted. “But now, it’s every night. Sometimes… sometimes two or three times a night.”

Was it really that much? Jesse hadn’t realized how many nightmares Jamie had been suffering from, he only knew about the really bad ones. Jamie must have gotten so used to them that he didn’t even show it all the time anymore .

That was awful….

“And you say there’s someone there, someone trying to hurt you?”

Jamie swallowed, glancing at Jesse for a moment as if not sure he should answer that question.

“Go on,” Jesse prompted gently. “Dr. Alevera is here to help. You can trust her.”

Jamie took in a deep breath and took Jesse’s hand again, as he nodded.

“They want to kill me, I think,” he admitted quietly.

“I can’t – I can’t remember why. And they have…

some kind of tool, I can’t ever see it clearly.

I don’t know what it is or how it works, but it…

hurts me. Whenever the dream lasts too long, they use that tool on me, and it burns like fire, all over me. ”

Jesse gave his hand a gentle squeeze. He couldn’t begin to imagine how hard it must be to talk about such horrible experiences. He just wished he could do more to help him.

“It ‘burns’ you,” Dr. Alevera repeated, looking up at Jamie from her notepad, her hazel eyes glinting in interest. “Do you suppose this might have something to do with the state you were in the day you were found? You said you had been covered in soot.”

Jamie nodded again.

“But you also said that a physical examination showed no signs of burn trauma,” the doctor continued. “Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“I see…” Dr. Alevera jotted down a few more notes on her pad. “Tell me, Jamie, what do you think your dreams might mean?”

Jamie hesitated again, pursing his lips as he glanced down at his hands with a sad, troubled frown. “I think… that my dreams are a memory I can’t recall. I think it really happened, and I think I’m… d-dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Dr. Alevera tilted her head quizzically.

“Jamie,” Jesse spoke up with a sigh. “You’re not dangerous, I promise you. ”

“Please, Mr. Callahan,” Dr. Alevera held up a hand. “I appreciate your efforts to help, but I’d like to hear Jamie’s thought process on this.” She turned her attention back to Jamie. “Why do you suppose you feel that way?”

“I simply do,” Jamie said. “I feel like I’m a threat, like I’m – like I’m going to hurt people, or that I already have, and I don’t…

I want – I want to be…” He frowned deeply, his icy-blue eyes reflecting the guilt he carried deep within.

Jesse would do anything to take that pain off Jamie’s shoulders… “I just want to be normal.”